Former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett and Marillion’s Steve Rothery are both guitarists known for valuing tasteful melodies and a good sound more than their note count. ‘The Roaring Waves’ sees them joining forces to create an atmospheric, cinematic instrumental guitar album.

“I don’t know exactly when the idea started”, Hackett thinks aloud. “Probably ten years ago. And then to find the time to actually work together was almost impossible, because we were both so busy with touring. I think we must be the busiest guitarists in rock. We are always touring. Steve is either touring with Marillion, or with his own band. Or in my case, with my own band, or sometimes with Djabe, sometimes with Genetics. And recording is going on all at the same time as well, both individually and collectively.”

“It’s a miracle we have gotten it together at all”, Rothery smiles. “But a lot of it did come about when the two of us were together in a room, and I had some loops going on the laptop, and we would just play, really.”

“The truth is that it was like a musical conversation between us”, Hackett adds. “That’s how most of it was written, in a call-and-response kind of manner. So one of us would play something, and the other would respond to it. It wasn’t so much a case of ideas being worked on outside the studio as face-to-face.

It’s been a long time since I have done face-to-face writing. Not since Genesis, really, when we were writing in the rehearsal room a lot of the time. People sometimes brought songs in, but that’s mostly how it worked. It was this idea of through composition with Genesis, although we didn’t call it that in those days. You’ve got to have a good verse and a good chorus, but then no one would agree about what was the verse and what was the chorus.

But that was those days, you know, a young band being very competitive with each other. It wasn’t like that with Steve. We weren’t competitive. We were having a musical conversation, and nobody was trying to blow anyone out of the water with this.”

Imaginary Soundtracks

“We were both trying to paint sort of a cinematic picture, I suppose, with the music”, Rothery says.

“I think so, yeah”, Hackett nods. “The idea of sea imagery and seafaring imagery was uppermost in our minds once we had settled on that. And it took a while to get to that point. But once we did, I think it helped coalesce the ideas into a finished standard.”

“Before that, it was just some ideas in their basic form”, Rothery agrees. “But even so, some of them very much had that team from the beginning. ‘Sandsend’ was inspired by a place just nearby where I grew up. And ‘Pacific Coast Highway’ is a road I know well. I have been to that part of California many times, and it’s one of my favorite places to go, really, below San Francisco, down to Monterey, Carmel, and Big Sur.

It’s kind of like Switzerland meets the sea, really. And it’s such a beautiful, spectacular place. So that was kind of in my mind: trying to do something like a road movie based on this sort of journey.”

“We were influenced by film quite a lot as well”, Hackett says. “We were thinking of the spy genre, with the Black Sea, noir films, and all of that. I think this provided a focus for us as we progressed working on the album. We like film. We were writing songs as potential film soundtracks, or films for the ear, imaginary soundtracks. I like to think of it like that.

And of course, nylon guitar also. The strange thing is that rippling effects and water effects are what I have been all about for years and years and years. So that’s why the nylon guitar went on the front of ‘The Roaring Waves’. I think that it conjures water better than any instrument I can think of. That’s my contribution to that.”

Never the Urge to Overplay

“I think we wanted to be freed up from the idea of verse-chorus, which is more associated with vocals”, Hackett explains. “We decided fairly early on that we would not have any vocals on the album, and let the instruments speak.”

“Ultimately, if people want to hear a record from the two of us, they want to hear us play the guitar to interact in a musical way”, Rothery says. “There is a section at the end of ‘The Roaring Waves’ where the two guitars are kind of weaving around each other in a kind of 3/4 or 6/8 kind of style, and that is a perfect example of the kind of synergy that was in our musical approaches, I think.

We both do know what we do, and I think we are both very sensitive to what is happening in the music. That is a skill we share. So there never was the urge to overplay or fill all the holes. This kind of music needs to have space. It’s not about an endless, relentless shredfest. It’s kind of the opposite end of the spectrum to that, really.”

“I think that when, if I may say so, brilliant American guitarists get together, it’s to outplay each other”, Hackett states. “And I think that doesn’t serve the best interest of the music. So the idea to slow down and allow the music to breathe has been very important for quite some time for me. If you are on a musical journey, you don’t want to get stuck in one gear.

I know plenty of guitarists who feel the urge to keep convincing people that they can play really fast, but for me, that kind of thing is too close to sports and too far removed from art. It’s very difficult to capture a melody in salvos and musical surprise attacks. Past a certain point, the human ear can’t even perceive the speed anymore, and it becomes a blur.”

“It has to have that space to breathe, really”, Rothery emphasizes. “To do what it should do, in terms of painting pictures and atmospheres, like an emotional backdrop for what we then do on top of it.”

An Almost Instant Backdrop

“I think we just kind of trusted each other to play what was appropriate”, Rothery says. “And Riccardo Romano, who played keyboards and bass on most of the record, engineered it and mixed it, was a great help and barometer to guide us at times. But I think it’s just a natural way of working together, that was really quite effortless in a lot of ways. And fun. I think if you can have fun while creating something you’re proud of, that’s a win-win situation.”

“When we had Riccardo, he was very quick at being able to provide an almost instant backdrop that made it sound like a band, running concurrently, and doing practically live drums, with his hands, which is an extraordinary feat”, Hackett adds. “Very interesting, all of that. I have been working with him ever since Steve introduced him to me. I have been working with him on stuff outside this as well. So it has been very fruitful, actually.

There’s an Italian drummer, Daniele Pomo. He’s very good. And a British drummer that Steve has worked with in his band, Leon Parr. They are all very good, all very interesting to work with. I think that really helped when we were doing jams together.”

Without Being Too Literal

“Playing guitar is not everything I do”, Hackett emphasizes. “I play harmonica as well, and other instruments from time to time. But guitar, as Steve says, is what people want to hear from us. So the question was: what are we going to play together, but without being too literal about being guitarists? At times, I think the guitars in our hands are symbols of other sounds.

A nylon guitar, for instance, does a very good job at impersonating the harp. It does a very good job at impersonating piano keyboards. It’s a small orchestra in itself. That’s part of what I do. But of course, the majority of this was doing this responsive guitar call-and-response stuff. Antiphonal in classical terms.

I would love to be a wind player. I would love to be a violinist. And when the Fernandes Guitars came along, where I could eliminate percussion and decay, just to have the note in the middle and have it sustain as long as I wanted, it really was the guitarist’s answer to the violin, I think. As close as one can do. And very close to the human voice, depending on how distorted your signal is, of course.”

A Depth You Don’t Often Hear Anymore

“Some time ago, I invested a lot into guitar synthesizers, but these days, I am more aware of the sonic beauty of the guitar. I used to think that even a normal, analog guitar was potentially a synthesizer. That’s how I orchestrated Genesis’ music. I didn’t mind sounding like a keyboard player or, through pitch manipulation, like a trumpet player.

Probably because Genesis’ music is fairly subtle. There wasn’t a lot of room for guitar heroics, so I was forced to think about what I could do to color the arrangements without being dependent on parts that are technically demanding. They don’t need to be to be musically interesting.

Guitar-based passages in Genesis were often two or three twelve-string guitars that would play similar, but slightly different parts. That characterized the guitar arrangements of early Genesis. From 1971 onward, I started tapping, and that was characteristic in a different way. But that happened sporadically, as cameos, if you will. Genesis wasn’t a band that strutted its stuff.

This approach was more from a composer’s point of view: what can you do to serve the song as well as possible? Obviously, you could come up with riffs that drive a song forward, but Genesis was frequently driven by arpeggios on guitar and keyboards. You couldn’t always hear what was keyboards and what was guitars.

I think that gave the music a depth you don’t often hear anymore. Musicians tend to play quite literally these days: if you’re a saxophone player, you want to sound like a saxophone player. But if you run a soprano saxophone through a Fender Bassman, or a simulation of one, you can end up sounding like a harmonica player from around 1966, let’s say Paul Butterfield.”

Slightly Bonkers

Although the video for ‘The Black Sea’ was recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, that was not where the album was recorded. “We recorded some of it at the Racket Club, Marillion’s studio near Aylesbury, and at each of our own home studios”, Rothery clarifies. “But we really wanted to do a performance video, and I have worked at Real World quite a lot with Marillion over the years.

In fact, I was there with Marillion about a week and a half after we did the video. It’s just a perfect place to do it. It’s such an incredible atmosphere. It’s slightly bonkers building a studio next to the intercity train line, but it’s a very, very special place.”

“And I think that the association with Peter Gabriel, which is very much part of my past, was important”, Hackett adds. “Pete was the guy who got me into Genesis in the first place, the guy who phoned me up all those years ago. So I have always had that sort of affinity with him, really. And so much has been born out of the associations that he has had and that I have had.

We have been able to share phone numbers and phone books. If he was off to Brazil, he would ask: can I have your phone book? Having heard one or two of my things. And vice versa. I think it’s important to play with people. There is one guy from Azerbaijan that I work with from time to time; he will never get a visa to America because he has worked in Iraq, Iran, Turkey…

I realize I’m digressing here, but I do wish the world would celebrate the best of what it has to offer each other. I guess I’m up on my soapbox here, but I don’t care where the doctor comes from who saves my life. I would rather have someone who knows what they’re doing than someone who is merely local. So with that kind of thinking, I think that multiculturalism is very important. It’s important to be open to people.

I like to think that the subtext of music is to heal people, to bring people together, to re-energize them, without putting to fine a point on it. I like to think that it’s one of the best ambassadors for peace that we have got. I work with people from all over the world, and I know that Steve does as well. We are kind of a United Nations between the two of us. Working with people from all over the world is better than bombing each other.”

“There was a natural harmony between us”, Hacket adds. “And we’re pals, and our partners – both of whom are called Jo – get on very well with each other, which is great. So we spent a lot of time talking about music and what it means to us.”

A Colossal Pain in the Behind

“It’s all real amps on the album”, Rothery assures. “There are no modelers. I do use modelers when I go out and play live with my solo band, just purely due to the logistics of traveling with equipment. I have flown around the world with real amplifiers and pedals, and it’s a colossal pain in the behind. So these days, it’s a Quad Cortex on a small board, and I’ll hire a Roland JC-120 and a 4×12″. And I take a little valve amplifier, a little 50-watt EL34 valve, when I go out as well.

But for this album, I have used a load of different amps. I’ve got a Pitcher, which is like a Dumble clone, I’ve got a Friedman, I think it’s a BE-50, a Bad Cat, the new Victory VX… All things you can imagine, really. A lot of different amps.”

“Most of the time, I tend to use an Engl amp”, Hacket says. “I like those very much, and I use them live. I used a little bit of a Peavey practice amp, which gets a remarkably big sound, and I have recorded on that. When I have been working on this album with Steve, when I want sustain, my go-to is one of the several Fernandes Guitars that I have with a Sustainer pickup on board. But not exclusively. I have used other guitars as well.

I suspect that Steve may be more into buying equipment, whereas I tend to try and go four a classic sound from maybe four different guitars. I have a twelve-string, which is a Chinese Zemaitis, I have several Japanese Yairi guitars, and the Fernandes Guitars, of course, which are Japanese as well.”

Quite a Few Horses

“For distortion, I tend to use SansAmp most of the time, and often put two together to give me that sort of gain-stacking effect. Apart from that, I’m very open to things. I do experiment. But I suspect that I don’t change horses quite as much as Steve Rothery.”

“I think I’m probably up to about fifty pedals in my studio at home”, Rothery smiles. “So there are quite a few horses. Several guitars too. I use a Les Paul, probably the most I’ve ever used it on a record this time. There is a guitar made for me by a guy in the States called Jack Dent. I think he is retired now, but that’s semi-acoustic, with two single-coils and a humbucker with a boost. Very chimey. I use that quite a lot.

Then there are my Blade Stratocasters, a whole kind of range, really, and an Ibanez John Scofield AS-200. It’s almost like a jazz-type guitar, but I find that it’s great for this sort of jangle stuff as well. And various different twelve-strings as well. I kept on buying new guitars, amplifiers, and pedals while we were working on this album. So for me, it’s a never-ending quest, really.

You’re trying to find new sounds that are interesting. Sometimes they are just variations of what you used in the past, and other times you want something that’s a bit fresh. I used an Eventide H90 in a few places on this record, which is a very, very different sort of sound as well.”

No Such Thing as Too Much Reverb

“I have been using pedals for years”, Hackett says. “I have a thing called an Iron Boost made by Pete Cornish. He made something similar for Brian May. I have worked with Brian May on a couple of different projects, and I have been using one of the guitars that he developed years ago. And Mike Piera, who makes pedals, the Beano Boost. Flashback for echoes, although when recording, one tends to rely much more on what’s in the box to give you the flexibility of what’s in the computer, I find.

But then once or twice, I was using Steve’s stuff, and we were getting really long reverbs on things that most engineers would say: well, that’s far too long, that’s going to take up so much space, you can’t do that. And I thought: oh yes we can, can’t we? There’s no such thing as too much reverb or echo for guys like us. We just like it to sing and cry in the heavens, and just emanate and go out there, and it becomes ever more vocal.

I have watched Steve also, when he does that with Marillion. He goes off on one, and it soars, and you look at the audience, and you can see their imaginations soaring as well as he closes his eyes, and he is lost in the sound of all that, and the audience loves it. It’s very characterful. You cant have too many guitars, and you can’t have too many pedals. And you definitely can’t use too much reverb or echo. We are junkies in this department.”

Whatever Is the Most Difficult Thing to Find

“We are always on the search for whatever the perfect chorus pedal is”, Rothery nods. “Or the perfect overdrive or modulation of some kind. I use a lot of Mike Piera’s stuff as well. The Analog Man King of Tone, the Prince of Tone, Mini Chorus… It’s all great stuff. I use a lot of Free the Tone effects as well. Their delays, Flight Time and Future Factory, different reverbs, Meris, a whole kind of range, really.”

“I like Line 6”, Hackett says. “I use some Line 6 stuff. A yellow box and a green box. It’s an endless conversation. What don’t you use? There’s a warehouse of stuff, where I’ll say to somebody: oh, would you be able to pick that up for me? They say: oh, that’s in the back of the warehouse, or in the back of the cage. Or: I don’t know about that one, are you sure you’ve got one of those? Yes, I’m sure I’ve got one of those. Whatever is the most difficult thing to find. So I’m a real pain when it comes to that.

But it takes up far too much room in the house. I don’t want to sacrifice the house for that. I’m far too respectful towards my wife for that.”

An edited version of this interview appeared in Gitarist 426 (September 2026)